The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Leviathan (25 page)

“If they are still thinking like you, if the AIs haven’t modified their thinking and rationalized things enough to deviate a lot from what
Black Jack would do, are there any conditions under which you would leave your base totally undefended like this?”

Geary considered that question, then shook his head. “No. We did take the entire First Fleet here, but Varandal isn’t defenseless. They’ve got some of their own ships. Nothing big, but something, and they have all of the fixed star system defenses. Plus, Varandal isn’t our only base. Losing it would be a tragedy, but it wouldn’t cripple us.”

“So, where are the dark ships?”

“I don’t know. All we can do is what we set out to do,” Geary said. “Then get back to Varandal and find out what the dark ships are doing right now.”

—

AFTER
forcing himself to leave the bridge so he wouldn’t exhaust himself and look nervous to everyone on watch, which would both be bad things, Geary walked through the passageways of
Dauntless
for a while, talking to crew members and judging their moods. Before the fight at Bhavan, most had been confident, almost cheerful, certain of another victory. Since Bhavan, a grimness had settled on them, a determination to win tempered by knowledge that victory might be dearly bought. As Geary talked to the sailors, though, he saw that for the moment worries about the dark ships had been overridden by fascination with being in a close binary star system. For all the star systems many of these sailors had visited, this was the first time they had seen two stars so close together.

The exercise had the desired effect of wearing him out, and Geary was able to sleep for a few hours until rudely awakened by a call from Tanya. “There is something you should take a look at,” she said. “Not urgent, but serious.”

“Show me.” The star display in Geary’s stateroom came to life. He got off his bunk and walked over to gaze at the images of this star system.

Desjani’s voice was somber. “Here. I’m highlighting it.”

He sat down as an area of the display brightened to emphasize details there. “Debris?”

“Yes. It took a while to spot it and analyze it because of how much junk is drifting around between those two stars. The interacting gravity fields must keep causing collisions between rocks jarred out of what would otherwise be stable orbits.”

Geary tapped the debris symbol and studied the information that popped up. “It wasn’t a warship?”

“No. Based on the composition of the debris, it wasn’t a freighter, either. There’s no sign of cargo or the remains of cargo.”

That left only one chilling possibility. “A passenger ship.”

“Yes.” Desjani made a face. “Maybe a regular shift change by the people who worked here. Maybe an attempt to get out of here when the dark ships slipped their leashes. From the dispersion of the debris, it happened about a month ago.”

“Is this the only debris field we’ve detected?”

“So far,” she said. “It’s still a few hours before we could expect any answer from anyone on the facilities and find out whether there is anyone left, and whether they’re scared to death, or whether they are so fixated on following orders that they are still prepared to fight to the death.”

“At the moment, I’m unhappy enough to let the Marines accommodate anyone here who wants to fight to the death,” Geary said. “Is there anything else new?”

“Not really new. I’ve been noticing something odd about the Dancers,” Desjani said.

“You mean something odd that we haven’t seen already?” Geary asked.

“All right, yes, something new that’s odd.” She indicated her display. “Normally, we get into a star system, and the Dancers start flying around, going wherever they want and flying rings around each other
and any other ships. But ever since we arrived here, the Dancers have stayed in that formation and stayed close to us.”

“That is odd.” Geary looked at the Dancer ships on his display. They were still in their smaller cylindrical formation, and they were indeed maintaining the same position relative to the Alliance formation. He called down to the compartment holding the special comm equipment, patching in Desjani to the call. “Hello, General. We’ve got another question for you.”

“Thank you,” Charban said, sounding almost sincere.

“The Dancers have been staying close to us since arriving at Unity Alternate instead of running off and, well, dancing around the star system. Can you find out if they are nervous or something?”

“That’s interesting. The Dancers haven’t volunteered any such feelings, but that is unusual behavior for them,” Charban agreed. “I’ll ask. They did just offer something that I think refers to
Invincible
. The lieutenants and I were discussing it before sending it on.”

“They aren’t staking a claim to
Invincible
, are they?” Geary asked. “When we captured it, the Dancers agreed that the Kick warship would be our property.”

“No, it’s not a claim. Here’s what they sent—

“Herd creatures build big,

“Make ship the herd always there,

“To be not alone,” Charban recited.

“The herd always there?” Geary asked. “Are they saying there are still Kicks aboard that ship? How could that be possible? We went over every cubic centimeter inside that hull.”

“I don’t think it’s a reference to Kicks still being on
Invincible
,” Charban said. “Lieutenant Iger noted the use of present tense, but also the clear reference to herd, which would mean a lot of Kicks. Unless they are physically buried in the structure of the hull, I don’t see how that could be.”

“Wait a minute.” Geary looked toward the depiction of
Invincible
,
remembering his visit aboard her. “People do feel Kicks aboard that ship. I felt them. Like a herd of ghosts everywhere you went. It was incredibly unnerving. If you weren’t part of a large group of people, the sensation could become too much to endure. Even those Syndic special forces that tried to capture or destroy
Invincible
couldn’t handle it.”

Charban looked suddenly surprised. “To be not alone,” he quoted. “Admiral, it’s that simple. The ghosts are a deliberate design feature. However the Kicks manage to create that sensation, it ensures that no matter where any Kick was on that ship, even if they were the only Kick in that area, they would still feel as if they were surrounded by the herd.”

“You’re kidding.” But the more Geary thought about it, the more sense it made. “It’s not a defense against invaders. It’s a defense against isolation or loneliness for creatures that have to feel surrounded by their comrades at all times.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Charban said. “Humans alone in a place can become worried about ghosts, can become frightened because they are alone, because we are also social creatures. Imagine how a Kick would feel, a creature raised to always be surrounded by its herd, if it were truly alone somewhere? We can understand that. It’s the first thing about the Kicks that we can both understand and empathize with.”

“It probably won’t be adequate grounds for peaceful coexistence,” Desjani pointed out.

“No,” Charban agreed. “It is hard to empathize too much with creatures who regard genocide of any potentially competing species as the natural order of things.”

“Especially since the Kicks appear to believe that just about every other species is competition,” Geary said. “You know, maybe the Dancers know something about Kick technology. They certainly know more about the Kicks than we do. Once we deal with the dark ships, maybe the Dancers can help us figure out how the gear works on
Invincible
.”

Charban made a face. “Rendering a technical manual into poetry is
a challenge probably beyond our skill level, Admiral. At least, it has been so far. I don’t think we can successfully tackle something like The Ballad of the Resonating Quark or The Tuning of the Bipolar Oscillator. Perhaps a check of the fleet will find one of your engineers is an accomplished and talented songwriter. That’s who we will need for that job.”

“An engineer who is also a songwriter?” Desjani asked sarcastically. “That ought to be easy to find.”

“Not so hard as you might think, Captain,” Charban said. “There is an intimate connection between engineering and music. Think of designing or building a musical instrument. It is an exercise in engineering, in stresses and forces, in structures and materials, vibrations and resonances.”

“I never thought of it that way,” she confessed. “For now, I think you should focus on the Admiral’s question about whether the Dancers are nervous. Unity Alternate has
me
nervous. It’s too quiet here.”

“I agree,” Charban said. “I’m ground force, not space, but even I feel that this is going too easy.”

—

SIXTEEN
hours after they had arrived at Unity Alternate, and with twenty-two hours to go before they reached the region where the orbiting facilities were located, a message arrived.

Geary watched a trim man in a nondescript suit speak with calm precision. “Your presence here is not authorized. You are directed to leave this star system immediately. Your act of trespass on official government property has already been recorded and will be forwarded to appropriate authorities for action. You are directed to say nothing about this star system until you are contacted by a duly authorized representative of the government. If you continue to approach these Alliance government facilities, which are off-limits to all unauthorized travelers, we will be forced to take any necessary actions, up to and including use of deadly force.”

“Is he for real?” Desjani asked.

“Actually, I’m wondering exactly that,” Geary said. “Is he real? Or are we looking at some recorded warn-off message that was triggered by our own attempts to communicate?”

“Automated comms?” Desjani gestured to her watch-standers. “Check with our experts on whether we can tell if that message was live or not.”

The eventual answer was “no.” “It’s digital,” the comm officer lamented. “We can tell when it was sent, but there’s no attached signature to let us know when it was prepared. Without that time stamp embedded in the message, we can’t tell whether it was put together a few hours ago or six months ago.” The officer paused. “But, presenting merely my opinion, I don’t think this was a live transmission. The wording was very generic, just the sort of thing we get told to put into messages intended for long-term use.”

Geary nodded. “But even if the message was prerecorded, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t sent by someone as opposed to being an automated response.”

“That’s true, Admiral. It doesn’t tell us anything except that whoever occupied those facilities did not have a welcome mat out for visitors.”

Six hours after that, urgent alerts sounded. Geary was already on his way to the bridge again and rushed the final distance, almost leaping into his command seat next to Tanya Desjani’s. “What is it?”

“We’ve probably found some of them,” she said briefly.

It took Geary a moment of studying his display to figure out exactly what he was seeing.

Some of the space docks were opening, their vast doors peeling back. Due to the angle at which the Alliance fleet was looking at the docks, they could not see inside yet, but there was only one plausible reason for those docks to be preparing to launch something. “Whatever is in those docks that are opening up should be easy for us to handle. They can’t hold too large a force.”

He had no sooner ceased speaking than another dock began cracking its doors.

“Will you stop doing that kind of thing?” Desjani growled at him.

But no other docks opened. Those which had begun opening finished the process, their doors fully retracted. And then, nothing happened.

“It’s been half an hour,” Desjani complained. “What are they waiting for?”

“Maybe there isn’t anything inside them,” Geary speculated. “Do you think they may have opened up because they saw us coming? Some automated maintenance function preparing to work on our ships?”

“No equipment in any of those docks is going to land one automated finger on my ship!” She glared at her display as if that would produce more information. “Maybe you’re right, though.”

More alerts sounded. “Or maybe I’m not,” Geary said.

The rounded, sharklike bows that began coming into view as they exited some of the docks were unmistakable in their menace. “Battle cruisers,” Desjani said, sounding eager. “Four of them.”

More, smaller warships began appearing at the dock openings. “Six heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers, twenty-one destroyers,” Lieutenant Yuon summarized.

“We can take these down easy,” Desjani exulted.

“If that’s all we’re facing,” Geary said, frowning at his display.

The dark ships had cleared their docks by now, and were gathering into a small, thin, rectangular formation. “Hull feature analysis identifies two of the dark battle cruisers as having been at Bhavan,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “The other two have not been encountered before.”

“The two that missed Bhavan,” Geary said. “I wonder why?”

“Stuff breaks,” Desjani said. “They probably needed something big fixed.”

The dark ship formation was coming around now and accelerating onto an intercept with Geary’s force. “Four hours to contact on current vectors,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Desjani’s satisfaction had faded into suspicion. “They’re making this too easy.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking that,” Geary said. “If those dark ships charge straight into us, we’ll be able to wipe them out on the first pass. Let’s see if they hold on that vector.”

He hadn’t slept nearly enough since arriving at Unity Alternate and found himself dozing off for brief periods in his command seat. An hour later, more alerts jerked him rudely back to alertness.

“More docks opening,” Desjani said. The same sequence followed, the docks opening, then a long pause, then the bows of warships beginning to appear. But this time the first, massive bows that came into view were blunter than those of the battle cruisers. “Battleships.”

“Four battleships,” Lieutenant Yuon said. “Four heavy cruisers, eight light cruisers, eighteen destroyers.”